Tag: Google News

Today, Google has released update for two of its most popular and useful Android apps – Google Drive and Chrome. The Chrome update change-log states that the latest update mainly brings some bug fixes and performance improvements.

While the latest update does bring about a noticeable improvement in the performance of the browser, it is still nowhere near the stock AOSP browser in Android. The scrolling has also been considerably reduced but there is still a long way to go before Chrome for Android matches the stock AOSP browser in terms of performance and smoothness. The latest version of Chrome for Android can be downloaded from here.

The Google Drive update brings about quite a few major changes including a native spreadsheet editor. Yes, Google Drive finally includes a native spreadsheet editor! Other changes include the ability to edit contents in a table and entering the edit mode in the app with just a single tap.

Android 4.2 is without a doubt one of the most buggiest release from Google ever. The latest version of Android is filled with bugs and instability issues including random reboots, minor bugs, performance issues and much more. Nexus 7 users, in particular, have been facing severe lag issues on their tablet ever since they installed the Android 4.2 update.

Thankfully, an XDA member – fishingfon – has a very simple fix for all the slowness and lags that Nexus 7 owners are facing post the Android 4.2 update. The tip is to actually disable background syncing in Google Current, which somehow magically improves the performance of the device.

To disable background syncing, simply open Google Current on your Nexus 7, press the Settings menu/the 3-dots button in the top-right corner of the app, and uncheck ‘Enable Background Syncing’ from within the Settings sub-menu.

If you don’t use Google Currents regularly, I would suggest you to simply uninstall or disable the app altogether.

Google has just sent out emails to everyone who signed up to be informed about the Nexus 4 availability that the handset will be back in stock in the United States Play Store at 12PM PST.

The Google Nexus 4 launch has been nothing short of a painful experience for all interested buyers. The handset was sold out within 20 minutes in nearly all the regions it went up on sale via the Play Store on November 13th.

Looking at how quickly the Nexus 4 sold out last time, I would suggest all interested Nexus 4 buyers to be on top of their game if they want the handset – order as fast as your Internet connection allows you to.

Google has also imposed a limit of two Nexus 4 per Google account this time. This means that if you have already ordered two Nexus 4 the last time, you won’t be able to order it this time. You can, however, order two 8GB variant of the handset.

This move from Google will definitely reduce the amount of people who will try to bulk order the Nexus 4 and then sell it on eBay for a premium.

Looks like the Android team over at Google is back from their Thanksgiving weekend and are now working in full force. The company has pushed the Android 4.2.1 OTA update for the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 10, which fixes the December bug.

For the unknown, Android 4.2 had a bug where users could not add birthdays of contacts who were born in December. The month was simply missing from the list. Apart from fixing this bug, the update does not bring any other visible changes.

Since this is an OTA update it won’t be available to all the lucky Nexus 4 or Nexus 10 users immediately. The roll-out takes some time and should be completed within a couple of weeks.

While it is not yet confirmed if the update is being rolled out to the Nexus 7 or not, some people on XDA are reporting that they have already got the Android 4.2.1 update on their Nexus 7.

I wonder if the Android 4.2.1 update will fix the poor battery life and lag issues that many Nexus device owners have reported post the Android 4.2 update.

Beginning from today, Android users would need a Google+ profile to post app reviews in the Play Store. All the previous user reviews from Android users are now shown as from ‘A Google User’.

From now on, all reviews in the Play Store will include the reviewer’s Google+ Profile name along with his G+ profile picture. As of now, new reviews from users who have connected their account to Google+ are still being shown as ‘A Google user’, but this problem should be rectified soon from Google.

This move from Google will definitely help in reducing the amount of poor app reviews in the Play Store, along with Spam comments. It will also allow developers to actually reach out to people who have posted reviews.

Apart from the exhaustive list above, quite a few Gameloft games have also gone on sale on the Play Store and the iOS AppStore including Asphalt 7, The Amazing Spiderman, and BackStab HD. If the above list is not enough for you, keep an eye on this Reddit thread for updates.

The iOS AppStore is also filled with price reductions for all the popular apps. EA has reduced the price of nearly all of its titles to a mere $0.99, making this the perfect time to grab your favorite EA games. Other apps that have gone on sale include Track 8, 1Password, ChuChu Rocket, Avengers Initiative, Real Racing, Real Racing 2, QuickOffice Pro, Fieldrunners 2 and more. In fact, most of the popular apps in ‘Top Paid Apps’ category in the AppStore are priced at around $0.99 currently. The whole list of iOS apps that have gone on sale or are free to download can be found here.

Last night, the official Skype application for Android was updated to v3.0 that brings about a new layout optimized for Android tablets. The application now features a new layout optimized for 7″ and 10″ Android tablets. Sadly, the updated version of the app will only work in landscape mode on all tablets.

The new update also includes some other changes include an improved audio quality thanks to the use of Skype’s wideband audio codec – SILK. Lastly, the update also adds the ability to sign in to Skype via Microsoft account. The update is already live in the Play Store and can be downloaded from here.

Plume, one of the most popular Twitter clients for Android, also got a bug-squashing update today. Apart from fixing a bunch of bugs and issues, the update brings lock screen widgets for all Android 4.2 users.

Below is the full change-log of the update -:

– add a lockscreen widget on Android 4.2 – fix the widget context on Android 4.2 – fix the display of the DM recipient – fix Facebook timeline not updating in some case – fix unread list item appearing multiple times – improve the picture cache coherence – make Halloween notification sound available all the time

Remember the beautiful Apollo music player that a CyanogenMod developer released earlier this year? The music player was eventually included in CyanogenMod 9 and 10 builds. However, the development of the music player pretty much stopped from Andrew soon after.

Today, Andrew Neal has released an updated version of the Apollo Music Player on the Play Store — Apollo+. The new version has been completely written from scratch and contains lots of under-the-hood enhancements and bug-fixes. He will also merge the updated app with CyanogenMod sometime soon.

However, the version of the app included in CyanogenMod will be different from Play Store one. The latter will be updated more frequently and contain more features. The app also comes in two versions – a free, ad supported version and a paid one for a mere dollar.As of now, the app is not optimized for the tablet layout, but Andrew is working on it and expects to add it sooner than later.

The developer is eagerly responding to all feedbacks, including negatives ones and feature requests, over at Reddit. So head over and directly give him your feedback!

Sony has been struggling with its mobile division for quite sometime now. The company has failed to release remarkable handsets that woo in customers. Sony, however, aims to change all that with its next flagship Android smartphone that will be competing directly with the Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5.

Sony CVP of Sales & marketing, Dennis van Schie said “We will create in the near future a flagship model that can compete with Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S III”.

In all probability, Sony is talking about its already leaked smartphone – the Yuga – which will sport a 5-inch 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, a 1.5GHz quad-core Krait processor, Adreno 320 GPU and more. Sony expects to unveil this handset sometime at CES or MWC early next year.

What Sony fails to realize here is that the Galaxy S III has already been in the market for nearly 6 months, and by the time Sony actually releases its Galaxy S3/iPhone 5 competitor to the general consumer, the iPhone 5 would also be nearly 6 months old.

People would be eagerly waiting for the One X successor from HTC and the Galaxy S IV will just be around the corner. By then, no one would be interestedin this Galaxy S3 competitor from Sony. The company’s phone has been consistently behind HTC and Samsung in terms of both software and hardware, which has what led to its downfall.

Even now, the latest and greatest phone from Sony — the Xperia T — comes with a dual-core Krait processor and 1GB of RAM, while Samsung and HTC phones are coming with quad-core Krait processors and 2GB of RAM. Before you guys jump in and say that hardware is only one part of the story, let me tell you Sony is not really doing well on the software side. The company expects to roll out the Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean update to the majority of its devices only in early-2013. By that time, Samsung and HTC would have already updated their flagship handsets to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

Yesterday, Google released the Nexus 4 in quite a few countries of the world, pushed the Android 4.2 OTA update for the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 7, released the updated binaries and Android 4.2 factory images for all the devices, and lastly, pushed the latest version of Android to AOSP.

Google’s lead AOSP engineer – Jean Baptiste Quèru – also announced that beginning with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, Google will be ending support for the Nexus S and the Motorola XOOM. This means that both these devices will not be getting any future updates from Google including the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean update. This should not really come as a surprise since both these devices have been in the market for nearly 2 years or more. Even then, both these devices are actually running a much more newer version of Android compared to majority of the Android devices out there.

The surprising news, however, is the lack of support for the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 7 3G variant in AOSP. It was initially presumed that the Nexus 4 lacks LTE so that it could be AOSP-compliant, but it looks like Google is yet to convince Qualcomm to open-source its secret sauce! Or, Google might be facing some issues with open-sourcing the GSM stacks used in the Nexus 4 or the Nexus 7 3G variant.

Hopefully, whatever the issue be, Google will be able to solve it and support the Nexus 4 in AOSP.